Page 2705 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 12 August 2015
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currently serviced by red rapids, but they only run during peak hours; these ones will be cancelled following light rail. Consequently, these relocations will limit the frequency of buses these tenants have access to and reduce their mobility and social inclusion.
This issue is another problem faced by the government as they try to force Canberrans to accept their flawed light rail policy. The light rail plan, the light rail project, has wide-reaching ramifications. The ramifications go to rates, taxes, fees and charges, buses, parking, public housing and more. Everything and everyone will suffer as a result of this government’s stubbornness with light rail.
Ms Berry, despite showing great concern for public housing tenants on Northbourne Avenue during last year’s estimates process, is now the first ACT housing minister to support removing public housing tenants from transport corridors. I do not think we have ever had that policy in place before—whereby we are actively taking people out of a transport corridor. We are actively making people worse off by way of transport under this policy; we are increasing social isolation. We are increasing transport disadvantage as a result of this policy. It is absolutely undeniable.
Northbourne Avenue is the main public transport route in Canberra at present, and it is meant to be the flagship corridor for the light rail project. Yet Ms Berry and this government do not think that public housing tenants deserve to live on that corridor. That is the consequence of their policy here. They do not think that public housing tenants deserve to live on the light rail corridor. They would rather shuffle them out and sell the land than have these people living on that corridor. That is the truth of this policy.
Social isolation and transport disadvantage will increase as a result of this government’s policy. That is why I will be supporting Ms Lawder’s motion today. I encourage all members to do the same.
MS LAWDER (Brindabella) (11.52): I wish to reiterate a few points about the percentage of public housing dwellings per suburb. According to information I received last year, 2014, in response to a question on notice, I could work out the average across suburbs in the ACT. Each suburb on average has about 8.13 per cent of public housing. That is a pretty rough average, but that was the information provided to me in the question on notice response.
There are other suburbs with far greater proportions of public housing—for example, Reid, 34.04 per cent; Oaks Estate, 18.13 per cent; Narrabundah, 15.14 per cent; Charnwood, 17.63 per cent; Ainslie, 18.28 per cent. All of those are higher than Braddon, Dickson, Lyneham and Turner, where dwellings are being replaced. In Braddon overall it is approximately 14.73 per cent; in Dickson, approximately 12.02 per cent; in Lyneham, approximately 13.52 per cent; and in Turner, approximately 13.02 per cent.
There a number of suburbs with far higher rates of public housing in them. That is not really a problem but it proves the point that the government are not doing this because they are concerned about public housing tenants and pockets of disadvantage; they are
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